[wellylug] 1U server and hosting - recommendations?

[Jethro Carr]

On Sun, 2007-12-16 at 17:14 +1300, Atom Smasher wrote:
> does anyone have any recommendations (or recommend avoiding any places) 
> for buying a 1U server and soon thereafter having it colocated?
> 
> my current server (in the states) is seeing ~50GB/month of traffic from 
> all over the world, so i'm not sure how that wold affect the price of 
> having it hosted in NZ.

hi Atom,

I like the IBM xSeries rackmount servers - very well built, reliable
machines.

I own an IBM xSeries 306m and have never had a problem with it, and my
employer has a number of these servers, all which are very reliable.

Dell rackmounts are also okay, but they appear to have less build
quality than the IBMs - ie: you look at them, and can see that the dell
looks cheaper.

Having said that, I've used a number of dell servers which have been
running reliably for years, so they seem reliable enough.

You can buy IBM servers on their website www.ibm.co.nz or from a
wholesellers like ingram micro (if you have an account with them).

And there is also a local PC vendor called Silicon (based in lower
hutt), who can build servers for you: http://www.silicon.co.nz/



You may want to look at other options which don't require owning
hardware though, particular if you want a worry-free setup that will
have any hardware faults fixed within a couple of hours.

One option is virtual machines, which gives you the flexibility of
running whatever OS you want, but not having to worry about hardware
failures. This is cheaper than colocation, but may not have the
performance you desire. Shop around and see what the options are, some
providers guarantee a certain level of performance with their VMs.


Also consider services that provide rented hardware and hosting. An
example is iserve's 1-hour hosting service:
http://www.iserve.co.nz/serverhosting/

They claim to fix any hardware problem on the server within 1 hour. If
uptime is a critical requirement for you, then this is a pretty good
service to look at.


Shop around for a hosting provider... international traffic can be quite
pricey in NZ, so if you have a lot of international users you may be
better off having a server in the US.




I haven't had much experience with colocation providers, so I can't
really comment much there.

My server is hosted in SafeNZ's data center (www.safenz.net) since they
are part of the company I work for and I get good rates. ;-)

It has some pretty cheap flat rate connections, however it has the
disadvantage of having UPS but no generators and is based in Napier.

http://www.safenz.net/server-co-location.htm


anyway, hope the above is useful for you, :-)

-- 
Jethro Carr

www.jethrocarr.com
www.jethrocarr.com/index.php?cms=blog

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